The Ethiopian federal police are in the Flight Ethiopian Airlines plane crash scene, near the city of Bishoft, to the southeast of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, March 11, 2019.
Tiksa Negeri | Reuters
The United States Department of Justice said Friday that it has reached an agreement with Boeing That will allow the aircraft manufacturer to avoid prosecution in two accidents of its 737 Max aircraft that killed 346 people.
The non -pressure agreement would allow Boeing, an important military contractor and the best exporter in the United States, avoid being labeled as a criminal. The decision means that Boeing will not face the trial as scheduled next month, since the members of the family victims have urged for years.
The Department of Justice met with the relatives of accident victims last week to discuss the possible agreement.
In a judicial presentation on Friday, the Department of Justice said that “it is the government's judgment that the agreement is a fair and fair resolution that serves to the public interest.”
The agreement “guarantees greater responsibility and substantial benefits of Boeing immediately, while avoiding uncertainty and risk of litigation presented to proceed to trial.”
The Department of Justice said it intends to present a motion to dismiss the case once the “agreement in principle” is finalized at the latest at the end of next week.
According to the agreement, Boeing will have to “pay or invest” more than $ 1.1 billion, said the DOJ in his presentation in a federal court in Texas on Friday. That amount includes a US $ 487.2 million, although $ 243.6 million that already paid in an earlier agreement would be accredited. It also includes $ 444.5 million for a new background for accident victims and $ 445 million more about compliance, safety and quality programs.
Boeing declined to comment.
The company has been trying for years to put the two accidents of its best -selling Max aircraft, a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and a flight from Ethiopian airlines less than five months later, behind it. The Maxes were based worldwide for almost two years after the second shock, a pause that gave Airbus to their rival an advantage to recover from the Covid pandemia.
But the families of the victims of the accident have criticized the previous agreements as love agreements for Boeing, requested more responsibility of the company and said that their executives should be judged. In 2022, a former chief technical pilot of Boeing was acquitted for fraud positions linked to the development of the Max.
Several of the members of the victims' family issued a statement through their lawyer shortly after the presentation of the court was released by criticizing the agreement and saying that he established a precedent worrying for other large companies.
“This type of non -prosecution agreement is not precedent and is obviously incorrect for the most fatal corporate crime in the history of the United States. My families will oppose and hope to convince the court to reject it,” said families' lawyer Paul Cassell.
The Department of Justice said that relatives of more than 110 accident victims told the government that support the non -prison agreement or “support the efforts of the department to resolve the case previously in general in general,” but added that others said they want the United States to take Boeing to trial and litigate to dismiss the agreement.
The aerospace giant reached an agreement in 2021 in the last days of the first Trump administration that protected him from prosecution for three years.
According to that agreement, Boeing agreed to pay a fine of $ 2.51 billion to avoid prosecution. That included a criminal fine of $ 243.6 million, a $ 500 million fund for family victims family and $ 1.77 billion for their airline customers. The new fund will be at the top of the $ 500 million that were already established.
Rescuers work on the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight accident near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, Monday, March 11, 2019.
Ayene muluge | Reuters
That 2021 settlement expired two days after a door panel exploded from a 737 Max 9 almost new operated by Alaska Airlines on January 5, 2024, after the plane left the Boeing factory without installed key bolts.
But last year, US prosecutors said Boeing violated the 2021 agreement, accusing the company of not establishing and enforcing a compliance and ethical program to detect violations of US fraud laws.
Last July, towards the end of the Biden administration, Boeing agreed to declare himself guilty of the position of criminal fraud in a new agreement. Later, a federal judge rejected the guilt agreement, citing concerns with the requirements of diversity, equity and inclusion to choose a corporate monitor.
Under that agreement of 2024, Boeing would have faced a fine of up to $ 487.2 million, although the Department of Justice recommended that the court accredit Boeing with half of that amount that he paid under the previous agreement.
Family members have photographs of victims of accidents lost in two fatal accidents of Boeing 737 Max who killed 346 people such as the Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, testifies before an audience of the Senate Science and Transportation Committee on the safety of aviation and the 737 Max solid, in Capitol Hill in Washington, on October 29, 2019.
Sarah Silbiger | Reuters
The United States had accused Boeing of conspiracy to disappoint the government by deceiving regulators about their inclusion of a flight control system in the Max that was later involved in both accidents.
“Boeing employees chose the path of profits on the frankness by hiding the material information of the FAA with respect to the operation of their 737 Max plane and participating in an effort to cover up their deception,” said the Attorney General of the Criminal Action of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice at the time of the 2021 prosecution agreement.
The messages revealed in an investigation into the development of the Max showed that the former Boeing pilot of Top Boeing was found not guilty of fraud in 2022, Mark Forkner, told the FAA to eliminate the flight control system known as MCA of manuals and, in a separate email, he boasted of “Jedi-Mind that she deceives” the regulators of the regulators of the approval of the approval of the approval of the approval.
The lawyers of the members of the victims' family criticized the preliminary guilt agreement last year, equating it with a slap on the wrist for the corporate giant, which recently won a contract that is worth billions to build the next -generation combat plane and works in other military programs that include equipping two new presidential planes.
